by I spend a lot of time in my local Waitrose because it calms me down, even when I don’t buy much.
It’s a sort of temple to soft British capitalism – that innocuous, eccentric mix of relatively high-quality foods whose chemicals and packaging are governed by a myriad of regulations, although its prices are high, it doesn’t feel anything close to Whole Foods or similar. American upscale chain.
I love browsing the cutting edge of luxury convenience. Did I know that I wanted a new combination of crab and scallops in a large ready-to-eat shell; tzatziki with a water spout, a large glass tumbler with a bee motif? No: but, now I know it exists, I might!
“What will they come up with next,” I often mutter inwardly, strolling happily among the pomegranate syrups and rose harissa pastries.
But this is a store that’s getting bigger and bigger and it seems like it’s been a while since Brits didn’t have to do their shopping under the watchful eye of ubiquitous cameras and security guards.
A time when we did not expect that thugs would regularly enter the shops and steal the most expensive things they can lay their hands on, such as spirits and wine. A period when the general decency of most everyday life seemed to be rarely disturbed most customers could remain unchallenged for years at a time.
An era, in other words, that is apparently long gone now. Last week, Lucy Brown, director of central operations and security at the John Lewis partnership, bluntly stated that rising shopper rates, as hidden heart types claim, are not related to the cost of living. “I’m not seeing that,” she said. “I would describe it as pure greed, not necessarily.”
“There are a lot of people there, they shop for as many hours a week as I work, which is a lot. It is basically their livelihood.
You get organized gangs. . . They will remove the shelves. . . They are doing that to resell.” Other thieves are doing it to fund different addictions.
Brown is unusual for her direct assessment of speech. The obvious moral decline of society, and the proliferation of bad actors, is interesting, rather than blaming it on a harsh and cruel social system, bad Tories in Westminster, or inequality. This is not surprising; Assigning moral agency to people and responsibility for their actions violates the wakerati’s basic worldview. But it seems to me that “greed, not need”, is the right line.
More than once I’ve been in Waitrose, absorbed in the latest tin of nut medley, and I’ve heard an almighty scuffle, security guards shouting and alarms.
Staff working in the alcohol section (next to the nut aisle) tell me today’s gangs don’t even pretend they need the basics. They move on to the most expensive drink, take and run in coordinated bribes. They show no fear, no shame, no interest in consequences (confident there will be none).
The staff are not trained in combat or self-defense so they don’t feel inclined to intervene too much, which is understandable. It is not safe for them to do so.
Amazingly, a Waitrose floor worker now appears to be one of the most dangerous jobs in high street crime.
How did this happen? It seems clear to me: there is a new generation of aspiring young people after a new generation of aspiring young people, people who can only be described as morally savage due to a combination of of a general cultural sag and progressive good intentions going backwards – seen with too much mercy from the justice system and the police. .
No matter how ridiculous it sounds, the reality is that something is wrong when the thuggery gang come to Waitrose and M&S. This is not because Waitrose shoppers deserve more peace of mind from well-run law and order than Tesco and Asda shoppers, but because it reflects the vast expansion in rank and violent crime.
To see where things are going, we might look at the Co-op, which has outposts in communities across Britain. As its own web pages indicate, it has “spent more than £200 million in recent years” on security.
Various clever texts eloquently detail the installation of “smart” CCTV, Smart Water “fog systems” for thieves looking for a way out, secure kiosks, a system called MySafety that allows staff to report crime from their own devices and body cameras .
Despite this, the Co-op said in April that the number of incidents of shoplifting, abuse, violence and anti-social behavior in 2023 rose by 44 per cent compared to 2022, by around 1,000 a day.
Unless Labor can change British law and order, which is highly unlikely, we will be going the way of the shops on America’s west coast, with everything from bottled water to toothpaste locked to cupboards, asking the team to find them out. .
It is a sad and strange thought; orange juice and loo roll attached to Waitrose shelves.
It’s also sad that more and more electronic eyes will be needed to look at shoppers – not because it’s intrusive to me, but because it reminds you how complete the social contract seems to be.
This death of morality is a wider problem of youth culture. The people of the city have become accustomed to a sense of environmental shame, and knife crime seems to be out of control. But it is the total horror shown by the murderers in the dock that sends chills up the spine, and speaks of the difficulties we will soon face.
Fighting crime is one thing: convincing Britain’s new young man to grow up is another and far more difficult.
